Theater for the New City’s Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, an indoor and outdoor live audience event, will be presented on Friday, May 26, Saturday, May 27 and Sunday, May 28.
Over 200 performing arts organizations, independent artists, poets, puppeteers, literary artists, visual artists and film makers are participating. A turntable of performances will be offered in two theater spaces each evening of the festival. An afternoon of performances for and by kids will be presented Saturday afternoon. A fine art show will be hanging throughout the fest in the theater’s lobby gallery. A film program will be presented Saturday from 1:00 PM to 11:00 PM, featuring works by auteurs from the Lower East Side/East Village along with works that reflect the essence of the neighborhood. Outdoors on Saturday there will be music and variety acts. A poetry jam (with prose on the side) will be presented indoors on Sunday afternoon.
The event started in 1996 as a three-day, indoor and outdoor multi-arts festival intended to demonstrate the creative explosion of the Lower East Side and the area’s importance to culture and tourism for New York City. It now employs three theater spaces inside TNC plus the block of East Tenth Street between First and Second Avenues. For the past 27 years, it has been organized by TNC and a coalition of civic, cultural and business leaders and presented free to an average attendance of 4,000 (although in 2020 it was produced online due to pandemic concerns).
For an overview of the festival, visit: www.jsnyc.com/season/LES.htm
Admission is free but donations will be gratefully accepted.
Theater for the New City (TNC) is located ar 155 First Ave. (at E. 10th Street), NYC
